Something to Belive In
by shadowblade-tara
Summary: Shadows Within. The team is closer than ever before. Sometimes, this may not be a good thing.


Criminal Minds © CBS.

Part 16 of Shadows Within. Direct follow-up to For All These Times.

**Something to Believe In**

The team gets a month off. It gives them the time they need to adjust to new circumstances, and they desperately need that time.

Castiel wasn't kidding. At first, the team cannot separate themselves into seven separate people. Even after that month, thoughts of _I _and _me_ are mostly replaced with _us_ and _we_. It takes a week before Hotch can even recognize his own name. The team no longer needs names to find each other; it takes a simple reach to find the right part of their whole.

Even more interesting is the way their emotions react to each other. The team has always been used to having their own reactions to things, but that is no longer the case. If Reid is upset, the entire team becomes upset. If Garcia has a nightmare, the entire team wakes up with that nightmare. Thoughts are no longer shared intentionally – everything flows from one to the other until it's hard to determine where they originate.

After about a week, they can recognize their names again. They can separate themselves out enough to function at least semi-normally in public. They test that out several times during their month off, going out to movies and for dinner. For the most part, they can act normal. It just takes them a few tries to realize they aren't actually talking aloud when they should be, or laughing at something one of them didn't actually say.

They need these practice runs. They need outside input on what they are or are not doing, so they can get better at pretending. They have to keep practicing, to work at pulling themselves apart every minute of the day, so they never slip up around someone who matters. It's hell, but they do it.

At night, right before they fall asleep, they let all barriers drop. They cease to be seven FBI agents and become one unified family, a single entity comprised of seven distinct personalities. Personalities that slowly blur into each other, becoming harder to sort out. They stay entangled in each other before they finally fall asleep, and in the morning it's hell to pull back away.

Castiel comes to visit them quite a few times, helping them develop techniques to sort themselves out. Every time he comes to see them, he wears that same pained expression that Reid caught that first time.

_Can't help him until we know._ Hotch tells him once. Reid nods.

_I know. Still want to._

That's another affect of their new circumstances – the others can glean information about regular people through Reid. As connected as they are, Reid can no longer shield them from what he Reads.

They're mostly sorted out by the time they go back on duty. In public, they can at least answer to their names and hold conversations that don't leave out half the information. Inside their heads, however, they still cannot fully separate themselves, nor do they try too hard to do so.

The results of this are clear in their first case together. They split up (and suddenly that thought no longer terrifies Hotch the way it used to – after all, they're never really apart) and search the warehouse for their unsub. The locals are helping them look. Each group has two locals with them. Reid and Morgan are together, Prentiss and JJ, Rossi and Hotch.

It happens to Reid and Morgan. The unsub is just behind Morgan, knife raised, ready to strike. It's a suicide run, and he knows it. He still plans to take at least one cop with him when he dies.

Reid spins around, gun raised, at the exact moment Morgan drops, giving Reid a clear shot. He takes it. The bullet passes clean through, and the unsub is dead before his body hits the ground.

The sound of the gunshot has the locals yelling for each other, trying to see if any of their own were shot. The BAU doesn't make a sound. Hotch doesn't even have to make a mental sweep anymore to know that none of his were injured. He smiles to himself, and he senses Reid smile back.

The kid is finally getting good with a gun.

That night, the cravings hit hard. Reid hasn't shot someone in a really long time (the team generally goes out of their way to avoid putting him in those kinds of situations) and apparently this one incident was enough to bring back years of cravings that he hasn't had. He locks himself in the bathroom of his hotel room. He sits curled up, head on his knees and nails digging bloody crescents into his bare arms. He shakes, hard.

Looks like Twinkies won't help this time.

Hotch has already decided that he's not letting Reid ride this out alone this time. He barely needs confirmation from the team before they all convene in the little motel room that he shares with Garcia. It takes Hotch less than a minute to pick the bathroom lock.

He supposes he could just reach out mentally, like they always do, but one look at Reid's crumpled form and he knows this is going to take something more. So he walks into the bathroom, pulls Reid into his arms, and brings him out into the living area. He sets their youngest down on one of the beds and motions for the others to come to him.

This _hurts_. This is the first time any of them has truly _felt_ the effects of cravings, and it hurts Hotch to realize that this is the hell his youngest goes through every time. He sits down on the bed beside Reid and wraps his arms around him, letting all the carefully constructed barriers drop. They cease to be Reid and Hotch and become something that is both and neither. They feel the others doing the same as they all join on the bed.

They all shake with tiny tremors and ride out the pain and want as Reid struggles. They struggle with him, holding on and holding together the only way they know how.

Slowly, the tremors cease. Slowly, Reid lets go of his arms, tiny trails of blood marking the puncture wounds. Morgan covers them with his own hands. Hotch takes one of Reid's hands in his own; Prentiss takes the other. Garcia is at his back, and Rossi and JJ are in front of him. They all touch him in some way, and slowly, Reid looks up at them.

_You didn't ask for this._ he whispers, and the fear and guilt echo in them all. Garcia hugs him from behind, resting her head on his shoulder.

_We wouldn't choose anything else._ she says simply.

In the morning they'll go home, where Jack and Henry wait for them. They'll play with the kids and tell them the sanitized versions of what they've been up to, what kind of case they've worked this time, and everything will be well again. Life will continue along its semi-normal track.

Tonight, they fight.

/-/

An: I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I may come back and rewrite it sometime. There will be one more story after this (one I've had planned for a while) and then we'll find out what Strauss and Gideon have been up to.


End file.
